New OCI Reality: Law Students Less Cocky, 40 Fewer Firms Recruit at Illinois

Old Atty
Sep 1, 2009 8:29 AM CST

This is the inevitable popping of the legal services bubble. There are simply too many law schools, too many law students, too many lawyers. Time to shut down some low-ranked schools and shrink the class sizes of higher-ranked schools to reflect the new reality.

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Time
Sep 1, 2009 9:30 AM CST

Fewer law students need to expect to get big firm jobs, and law schools need to do a better job managing expectations and recruiting students who have the desire to work in smaller to mid-size firms.

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sarah
Sep 1, 2009 10:54 AM CST

once again we see how the legal profession media focuses almost exclusively on the job prospects and salaries of top grads from top schools, while virtually ignoring grads in the bottom half of the GPA curve and ignoring students from lower ranked schools, such as the bottom TWO THIRDS of ALL law schools.

Is there a reason for this particular focus? Of course there is. MONEY.

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tim
Sep 1, 2009 11:21 AM CST

Who are you to say that there are to many lawyers and that we should shut down law schools?

Your job is no more important than the future job of the guy going a 4th tier law school this morning.  The good lawyers will find work.  The bad and lazy lawyers will find another profession.

It doesn’t matter where you go to school or how much it cost.  If you are worth your salt, you will make it.

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anonymous
Sep 1, 2009 11:23 AM CST

The word is slowly getting out, but most people won’t listen.  Ignorance is bliss as long as there is money to be made.  Just looking at the housing bubble. 

As long at the gov’t continues to pump money and billions of dollars into federal loan guarantees, the education bubble will continue to inflate.  Tuition will increase, and debt burdens of graduates will become more and more unsustainable.  There will come a time however, when the party will be over.

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J.D.
Sep 1, 2009 12:34 PM CST

As long as companies are willing to give out loans, law schools are willing to take the money.

If SallieMae et al. didn’t give out such massive loans, law schools would have to lower tuition.

The problem, of course, is that the willingness of the gov’t to give out money (even while in the red) has no relationship to the job market.

And the ABA really is nowhere to be found on this issue.

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B. McLeod
Sep 1, 2009 3:41 PM CST

There is considerable “medical tourism” now, whereby those who have the travel budget are going to other countries for major surgeries.  I’m surprised “managed care” providers have not begun mandating it for everyone.

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B. McLeod
Sep 2, 2009 10:38 PM CST

Actually, serial poster B. McLeod thinks the common law fraud action James advocated against the ABA, purely for media purposes, would be frivolous.  Mainly because it would be frivolous.  Here we see James desperately attempting to salvage his poorly reasoned argument by misrepresenting it.  Juvenile.  We can assume James does not have any litigation practice.

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Anon
Sep 4, 2009 7:12 AM CST

I was always under the impression that in the legal and medical professions, the reason for the rigorous admission and testing standards was to ensure that the legal or medical professionals are capable of doing the job and can properly assist people without putting them at risk. 
It seems that some people here are suggesting that we raise the admissions and testing standards in the legal profession, not to protect the clients, but merely as a way to reduce competition and maintain a sense of academic superiority in our profession. 
Who do we think we are?  If someone else is capable of acting competently as an attorney, they should be allowed the opportunity to do so, without trying to whittle the legal profession down to the “chosen few.”

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Robert
Sep 4, 2009 8:34 AM CST

While I recognize that there are reasons that a person might prefer to work in a big or mid-sized firm, I really don’t have any sympathy for anyone who passes the Bar and can’t find “a job.” 

A box of business cards, a telephone, a word-processor, and you’ve founded your own firm. 

Yes, there are probably “better” positions out there than self-employment, but if you aren’t willing to hire yourself, why the hell should anyone else hire you?

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Mr. T
Sep 4, 2009 8:40 AM CST

The problem isn’t law schools per se ... everyone should be permitted access to education.  The problem is the licensing process.  The bar exam is a ridiculously easy test with a curve that allows 85% of examinees to pass, and, after riding the curve, thousands of new lawyers are set loose with essentially irrevocable licenses.  Since law schools refuse to perform any quality control for new lawyers, States should step up, beef up the bar exam, lower the curve (to, say, 50%?) and issue provisional licenses subject to review and requiring a member in good standing to sponsor the new licensee.

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JQ
Sep 4, 2009 9:30 AM CST

In Response to 18, I agree that the system purely raise the price of legal services by limiting the supply, but having admissions as “open” as they currently are does a disservice to everyone except for the law school industry.  Lawyers should not self regulate to make each other rich, but we should change the system so that people aren’t going to law school and becoming financially crippled for life. 

Law school is too expensive. Professors teach 4 hours a week and spend the rest of their time upping their status by doing research and writing projects.  The research isn’t usually relevant to teaching students.  Law students have no choice but to subsidize intellectual interests of their professors.  A law school with full time teachers could run at a fraction of the cost and provide the same value.  Quite frankly, anyone who is truly competent enough to be an attorney is perfectly capable of teaching themselves the theory and research skills that are typically acquired in law school.

Concerning competence and service to clients, law school does not teach people how to provide services that clients need.  Important legal skills are learned on the job, if ever at all.  For the most part, law students do not learn how deal with clients, manage client expectations, find practical solutions to problems, interact with other attorneys, judges, witnesses, how to conduct discovery, how collect evidence, etc… As such new lawyers are left learning on the dimes of their clients and employers.  Of course, law professors for the most part, don’t have these skills themselves and probably chose the teaching profession in large part to avoid the stress of actual legal practice.

This “buyer beware” rationalization that has been discussed is morally indefensible.  To set up a system where students ante up 150,000 dollars and 3 plus years of time to find out if they have what it takes to pass the bar exam, find a job, and make it as a lawyer inevitably puts a lot of people in a terrible spot.  It is much better for everyone, except the law school industry, if the difficulty in gaining admission to law school was increased to the point where licensing and employment were virtually assured with admission.  Simply moving the bar exam to the end of 1st year would allow many people a way out after 50,000 dollars of debt instead of 150,000.

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BMF
Sep 4, 2009 10:59 AM CST

Mikey @ 21: “I think maybe the point is more that we should try to save thousands of clueless liberal arts undergrads the cost of learning the hard way that they are most likely not going to make it as attorneys. “

WHY?  I went to law school at age 40. I saved for 8 years to do it. When I got there, I was astounded to discover (—thanks to a survey done by our legal writing prof—) that approximately 25% of my fellow classmates had chosen to go to law school—“because they didn’t get into the graduate program/school they originally wanted, and/or didn’t know what else to do with their lives.” If they or their parents have the money to burn to maintain them in a “holding pattern” away from fiscal reality, fine. At my school, these “undecided” kids provided jobs for hundreds of people—including teaching positions for attorneys who were experts in their respective fields, but who hated BigLaw practice. (Without the current numerosity of law schools, the latter would invariably be potential competition, for everyone else whinging on this message board, making it less likely that YOU all would succeed.) 

What is most ironic is, with few exceptions, these “undecideds,” most with no particular love or exceptional aptitude for law, usually graduated in the top 25% of the class.

So, in continuing their entrenched tradition of scraping off the “cream” of the law school crop, BigLaw may be following a recipe that virtually guarantees their firms’ mediocrity. Because obviously, they’ve forgotten that sh*t also floats.

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Sparky
Sep 7, 2009 2:56 PM CST

Law school, like any other graduate education, is as valuable as what you put into it. Sure, the market is terrible and there are plenty of T4 schools out there that are looked down upon and likely don’t produce the best or the best. But frankly, if the best of the best come from a T1 school with no experience, and there are plenty of them being paid a lot of money, what’s the difference? I went to school on the part-time four-year plan and worked in a litigation boutique firm the whole time. I spent my days learning “real law” and spent my evenings sitting in classrooms with 20-somethings who had no clue. Someone told me once that no matter how you got there, you got there and what you made of it was up to you. I made the best of the opportunity I had and now do fairly well for myself as an attorney. And I spend spare time as an adjunct drafting teacher in a local law school. Not bad for a “barely got in, finished so-so, T4” alum.

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